Mining memories: 'Millie the Miner' and her fellows kept Kennecott thriving during WWII years

After the bombing of Pearl Harbor drew the United States into World War II, the country found it necessary to gear up for the war effort very quickly.

Almost overnight, auto factories were converted into aircraft plants, shipyards were expanded and new manufacturing plants were built.

For a country coming out of the Great Depression, this was good news on the economic front. Early on, urban unemployment was able to supply necessary workers, but as the war went on and more and more men went off to fight, jobs became harder and harder to fill.

Enter Rosie the Riveter, premier poster girl of America in the 1940s and symbol of the more than 6 million women who were drawn into the work force to perform jobs in defense plants and manufacturing areas that had previously been the sole arena of men.

With slogans such as "do the job he left behind," women were encouraged to "drop your apron and take up your toolbox." One widely circulated poster showed a woman in a work shirt and head wrap, flexing her biceps and proudly proclaiming, "We can do it!"

They did do it — not only providing the productivity America needed for the war effort but also challenging widely held notions of what women could and should do. And after the war, while many of the Rosies went back to being suburban housewives, many stayed in the work force, forever changing the face of American industry.

In 2000 then-President Bill Clinton signed legislation creating a Rosie the Riveter World War II Home Front National Historical Park, which is located in the former Kaiser shipyards in Richmond, Calif., to "stand as a lasting tribute to these brave women who played such a crucial role in winning the war."

At Utah's Kennecott Copper Mine, "instead of Rosie the Riveter, we had Millie the Miner," said Louis Cononelos, director of government and public affairs for Kennecott Utah Copper Corp.

Known as "the richest hole on Earth," the Kennecott mine had seen its ups and downs in the early part of the 20th century. World War I had given the mine a big boost, but postwar slumps forced it to actually shut down. The copper market revived by 1922, and the reopened mine stayed afloat until the Great Depression caused more cutbacks. In 1936, Utah Copper Co., which had been founded by Daniel Jackling early in the century, was absorbed by its Guggenheim-owned parent entity, Kennecott Copper Corp.